


no perfect choice

by The_Eclectic_Bookworm



Series: nowhere else i'd rather be [6]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: BOOM! Buffy the Vampire Slayer Comics, F/M, Gen, also some MAJOR spoilers for issue 8, more about jenny than about jenny/giles but the ship is still a focus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-25 17:42:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20728211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Eclectic_Bookworm/pseuds/The_Eclectic_Bookworm
Summary: At some unspecified time after the apocalypse is averted, Jenny Calendar comes to terms with the things she's learned about herself and her long-term partner.





	no perfect choice

The night that the world doesn’t end, Jenny Calendar goes out with Angel to get burgers. She can’t look Rupert in the eye—hasn’t been able to, ever since what happened—and so when Angel offers to make a burger run, Jenny jumps at the chance to leave the party behind. She follows him outside, stumbling a little to keep pace with him, the skirt of her green-black formal dress swishing at her calves.

Angel turns, a strange look in his eye, and says, “Do I know you?”

Jenny shrugs. “I just,” she says, “I just can’t be in there.”

Angel examines her more closely, face shuttering off. “You remind me of…” He trails off. “Someone,” he says. “From a long time ago.”

Jenny doesn’t really care to examine why this youthful vampire seems to think he knows her. “I’ll pay for the burgers,” she says. “Just please let me come with you.”

Angel frowns. “You’re…the Watcher’s partner, right?”

_Partner _has a different ring to it than _girlfriend, _Jenny thinks. Rupert’s always agreed. The day after he gave her the key to his place, two years before they moved to Sunnydale together, he started calling her his _partner. _She’d made a lot of jokes about cowboys and buddy-cop dramas. He’d kissed her temple and said that she was right, in a sense, because those sorts of partners were also in each other’s lives for good.

Four years, he’s been in her life. Four years, and she had no idea that this was the kind of man he was when the chips were down.

She smiles, tightly, and says, “Not really. Not anymore.”

“Ah,” says Angel. He looks somewhat uncomfortable. “Is that why you’re—”

“Look, I’m not interested in talking about it,” says Jenny sharply. “In fact, I’m actively trying to avoid someone who is going to _make _me have to talk about it. So could you please—can we _please _just go get burgers?”

Angel sighs—as though _he’s _the one being put out by Jenny’s perfectly reasonable request—and shoves his hands into his pockets, looking bizarrely like one of the kids Jenny teaches. He must have been young when he was turned, she thinks, because for all the ageless wisdom in his eyes, his face still has traces of babyish roundness. Eighteen, she thinks. Nineteen at most. “Fine,” he says. “You’re paying.”

“I already _said _I’d—never mind.” Jenny starts walking again. This time, it’s Angel who has to fall into step with her. “So. World’s saved.”

“Pretty much.”

“Any plans?”

Angel shrugs, turning a soft shade of pink. “Buffy’s nice,” he says. “I might try and get her number before I head back to LA.”

Jenny’s brain keeps on bouncing between _teenage boy _and _ancient vampire _every time she tries to pin Angel down. It’s ridiculous. She doesn’t really feel like talking about romance right now, so she says grimly, “I mean _important _plans.”

“Isn’t love important?” says Angel.

Jenny is about to burst into fucking tears in front of this fucking vampire and she _resents _it. In a choked-up voice, she says, “Love is _stupid.”_

Angel tugs on her elbow, pulling her to a stop on a street corner. He’s giving her an extremely annoyed look. “Clearly you need to talk to someone,” he says. “Why are you pretending that you sought me out for a burger run?”

He is an _infant, _Jenny thinks. He is _barely an inch taller than her. _(Okay, so maybe it’s more like six inches. Whatever. She teaches computer science, not math.) A teenager shouldn’t be looking at an _adult _like _they’re _the one that knows things. She wants to say all of this, but what comes out is a badly-stifled sob, then, “I _hate him!”_

Awkwardly, Angel pats Jenny’s shoulder. “Okay,” he says. “You really seem like you need some time alone to process…” He waves his free hand vaguely, an uncomfortable expression on his face. “Whatever is going on right now. I’m gonna call you an Uber so you can go home—”

_“I can’t go home,” _Jenny realizes aloud, and that’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Because _home _is Rupert’s books on the shelves, and Rupert’s tea in the kitchen cupboards, and Rupert’s clothing in the dresser. Home is Rupert’s good-morning kiss, and the way he rests his hand on the small of her back, and the way she fits into his arms _just right. _Home is her _best friend, _and she is never going to get to have that again.

Jenny falls back, away from Angel, and inadvertently steps off the curb. She probably would have hit her head on the concrete if Angel hadn’t caught her with vampiric speed, pulling her back upright. And the feeling of someone touching her, steadying her, for the first time since this whole mess began, breaks Jenny entirely. She falls forward, burying her face in Angel’s shoulder, and finally, finally, begins to cry.

“Okay,” says Angel again, sounding _deeply _uncomfortable. “So. I guess I should just call an Uber for us both, huh?”

* * *

Drusilla’s words have sunk into Jenny’s bones and taken root, but not in the way they were intended. _Weak, _Jenny thinks, dipping one of her french fries into ketchup and feeling strangely detached from her body. What is strength, then? Standing and watching while innocent people die, hand resting over the one thing that will put a stop to needless bloodshed? Rupert hadn’t looked happy as he’d done it, but he’d _done _it, watching wide-eyed as though he had no way to save Joyce’s life. One word from him could have saved Joyce’s life.

Jenny takes a bite of the french fry and doesn’t taste it at all.

“So the world didn’t end,” says Angel. “What’s _your _plan?”

Jenny leans back against the booth, staring up at the fluorescent lights until she has to close her eyes. She doesn’t know how to think beyond the horrors of this endless night.

“Ms. Calendar?”

Jenny opens her eyes, then, looking distantly towards the man-boy-vampire-thing in front of her. “I’m so tired,” she says, and she sounds more shattered than she’d like to admit to being. “This is all my fault.”

“Oh?”

“I gave the dagger over,” says Jenny. “The deaths in Sunnydale are on my conscience.”

“I don’t think that’s the way that works,” says Angel.

“I keep trying to tell myself that,” says Jenny, “but it doesn’t really matter—”

“Wouldn’t she have found that dagger no matter what you did?” says Angel. “What about all those people in the museum who would have died if you hadn’t spoken up? Mrs. Summers told me you saved her life.”

“No one cares about that,” says Jenny bleakly.

Angel makes an almost disdainful noise in the back of his throat. “Listen,” he says. “Rare is it that _I _tell someone not to get broody, but I’m really starting to feel that way when I hear you. Buffy’s mom is alive because of you. Probably a whole museum full of people is alive because of you. Hell, even your idiot Watcher partner is alive because of you, and I’m _sure _he understands that. There was no good choice in the hand dealt to you, Ms. Calendar, but at least you had the courage to _make _a choice. Your partner would have just stood there in perpetual indecision while Drusilla slaughtered that whole museum.”

“No,” says Jenny suddenly, looking up at Angel. He raises an eyebrow. More fiercely, she says again, _“No. _Rupert _made _his choice. That’s the fucking problem.”

“Order 52!” calls the lady up at the front. Angel checks their receipt, then stands, crossing the room to pick up the large paper sack full of burgers for the Scoobies. Jenny falls back into the booth again, staring up at the fluorescent lights until she has to close her eyes. But the lights linger even with her eyes shut—a radioactive glow-in-the-dark impression. They stay much longer than they’re probably supposed to.

Angel sits down on the same side of the booth as her. She doesn’t open her eyes, but she feels the seat shift underneath her, and hears a soft, awkward cough. “Burgers are here,” he says.

Jenny doesn’t say anything.

“Ms. Calendar?”

“I’m so tired,” says Jenny again. She doesn’t open her eyes.

A silence. Then, “Ms. Calendar, I’m going to have to call Giles if you don’t get up.”

Jenny opens her eyes, fixes Angel with a deeply reproving look, and picks up the paper sack from the middle of the table. She waits for Angel to vacate the booth, and then she follows him out, keeping the sack steady in her arms. “What did you get everyone?” she says, using the Business Mode Teacher Voice she pulls out when she’s had a hard day but she’s still got a class to run.

“Really just burgers,” says Angel. “Plus some, uh, condiments? I don’t, uh, I don’t know a lot about burgers—”

“Great,” says Jenny. “Let’s go.”

* * *

They get back to find the party winding down, though everyone’s still very vocally happy to get burgers from Angel. Rupert keeps trying to catch Jenny’s eye; she very pointedly ignores him. “Kids, I think you should all start heading home,” she says, then amends, “or to what’s left of it. Rupert, you can drive them home, right?”

“Jenny,” says Rupert.

Jenny doesn’t want to talk about it. “Rupert,” she says. “You Can Drive Them Home, Right?”

Buffy, Willow, and Xander all exchange worried looks. If Jenny wasn’t using all her energy to make sure she doesn’t break down completely in front of her students, her ex, and whatever the hell Angel qualifies as, she’d wonder what Rupert has told them while she’s gone—or if he’s bothered to tell them anything at all. “Ms. Calendar—” begins Buffy.

But then Jenny feels a hand on her elbow. “Yes, I think Rupert should drive them home,” agrees Mrs. Summers, fixing the kids with a firm look of her own. “There’s some stuff I’d like to talk about with Jenny in private.”

This seems to confuse and intrigue the kids even more. As Rupert shepherds them out, Angel at their heels, Jenny catches Buffy’s whisper to Willow: “What the heck does _my mom _want with Ms. Calendar?” Which, she supposes, answers her question: Rupert hasn’t told the kids a damn thing. Anger and misery twists her stomach into knots.

Mrs. Summers’s hand hasn’t left Jenny’s elbow. “I wanted to thank you,” she says, her voice shaking only a little, “personally, for saving my life. I understand that that wasn’t the decision that your partner—”

“Not my partner anymore,” says Jenny flatly.

“—was going to make,” Mrs. Summers continues, fixing Jenny with that Don’t-Interrupt-Me look that all mothers seem to have down pat, “and I’m sure that it wasn’t an easy decision for you to come to. It’s clear it’s had a lot of repercussions for you.”

“For all of us,” says Jenny, hollow and distant.

Mrs. Summers bites her lip, all that firm certainty fading. “I don’t know a lot about…_this,_” she says uncomfortably. “Rupert’s been doing his best to brief me on it. But I know enough to know that you sacrificed a lot to save me, and I think you should know how grateful I am to you for that.”

For the first time in what seems like an eternity, something warm unfurls in Jenny’s chest. “Thank you,” she says, her voice shaking a _lot._

“Thank _you,_” says Mrs. Summers, and squeezes Jenny’s elbow. “Do you want me to drive you home?”

_Home. _Jenny thinks, again, of Rupert. She isn’t ready to talk to him, and she doesn’t know when she will be. “Well, uh, my apartment was hit by that first fireball,” she lies. “At least, I’m pretty sure it was. I live close to the school, and—”

“Then stay with us,” says Mrs. Summers, giving Jenny a small, encouraging smile. “It’s really the least I can do.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t want to impose,” stammers Jenny, taken aback, “I mean, I can really just stay in a hotel—”

But Mrs. Summers shakes her head. “You saved my life,” she says. “You ensured that I would be there for Eric and for Buffy. Eric’s just as grateful to you as I am, and Buffy—well, she doesn’t know _yet, _but—”

_“Don’t _tell her,” says Jenny immediately.

Mrs. Summers’s eyes widen. “What?”

Jenny swallows, then says, “Buffy…Buffy cares very much about Mr. Giles. I, I don’t think she’d be happy to know that he—” She can’t finish that sentence. She hates herself for absolving Rupert, but she’d do anything if it meant sparing Buffy from further harm and hurt. Finding out that her Watcher would have let her mother die…after such an arduous experience, that kind of thing might break Buffy’s heart.

Mrs. Summers seems to take this in. Then, quietly, she says, “If my daughter cares very much about Mr. Giles, then she deserves to know the kind of person he is. He was trying to make a decision to save the world, Jenny, at least from what he’s told me, and while it isn’t a decision I like it’s still one I understand. Shielding Buffy from the truth won’t do her any favors.”

Abashed, Jenny swallows, unable to meet Mrs. Summers’s eyes. How is it that every decision she makes ends up being the wrong one?

_Weak, _says Drusilla in the back of her mind. _Find a stronger partner, Watcher._

“I’m sorry,” says Jenny. She sniffles, and hates how childish it makes her feel.

Mrs. Summers gathers Jenny into a quiet hug. “Tonight’s been hard on all of us,” she says softly. “I imagine it won’t get much easier from here on out.”

* * *

They arrive at 1630 Revello Drive to find Buffy unlocking the front door, Rupert hovering awkwardly by her side with one hand resting on the cross he had tucked into the pocket of his suit jacket. He looks up upon hearing their footsteps, eyes half-panicked, as though expecting a vampire to spring upon them both. His expression changes when he sees her. “Jenny,” he says.

Jenny doesn’t say anything. Drawing her arms in close to her chest, she stares down at the toes of her once-polished, now-scuffed, clunky black heels.

“Ms. Calendar?” There’s a worried sympathy to Buffy’s voice.

“Jenny’s staying with us tonight, Buffy,” says Mrs. Summers, who seems to be doing her best not to make eye contact with Mr. Giles. Jenny feels awful for dragging Mrs. Summers into her relationship drama, but if she can avoid talking to her ex, it’s worth the guilt. “I’ll tell you more about it when we’re inside.”

“Jenny?” says Rupert. There’s a strangely fragile note to his voice—as though he’s a second away from shattering himself.

Jenny scuffs her shoes against the porch, feeling acutely aware of her dishevelment. This had been such a beautiful dress, she thinks, but the flower she’d picked to match Rupert’s tie had gotten lost somewhere along the way. It’s very possible a vampire ripped it off. She’s been doing a lot of fighting today—and in heels, no less.

“Mr. Giles, I’m going to go in now,” says Mrs. Summers. “Would you mind stepping by so I can get past?”

Jenny can feel Rupert’s eyes on her. She knows that this is a crucial moment. She knows that if she doesn’t look up and say something, she’s going to hurt him just as much as he hurt her, and there’s going to be a lot more to piece together if ever they decide to fix things.

_I started a fucking apocalypse, _she thinks. _Why not ruin things just a little bit more?_

She moves to step inside—

“Just a moment,” says Rupert. “Jenny, I—may I speak with you? We haven’t talked since—” He stops, and swallows hard. “Since the museum.”

Jenny looks up at him, feeling so curiously empty as she does. She hears Mrs. Summers hustle a curious Buffy inside, hears the door swing shut, and then it’s just her and Rupert on the moonlit front porch. Still without a word, she crosses her arms, looking up at him.

“I wanted to say—” Rupert looks uncharacteristically at a loss for words. After a moment of hesitation, he says, “I wanted to say that you don’t need to feel guilty.”

_That _was not what Jenny was expecting. “Guilty,” she repeats, and can’t keep the derisive laugh out of her voice.

Rupert seems somewhat taken aback by her reaction. “Because of what your actions caused,” he says, as though it should be obvious. “I assumed you might—”

“Fuck you,” says Jenny. Suddenly she’s wishing she had that fucking dagger, because she’d really like to stab _him _with it and open the Hellmouth _herself _this time. “FUCK YOU,” she says again, not quite a scream but loud enough to skirt the line, and _certainly _loud enough to catch the attention of Buffy in the living room window. “We’re DONE,” she shouts.

Rupert reels back as if she’s slapped him. “Jenny?” He sounds like a lost little boy, and she guesses that makes sense: when Jenny’s mad at him, usually, she’s reasonable about it, laying out her grievances point by point even when she’s shouting them at him. She doesn’t jump from refusing to speak to ending their relationship. That’s not like her.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” says Jenny. “Don’t you dare look at me like this is something I should be feeling _guilty _for.”

“And how should I look at you, then?” says Rupert, almost exasperated. “What does this situation look like to _you?_”

“Like you would have let Buffy’s mother die,” says Jenny. Her voice breaks. “Like you would have watched, _knowing _you could have stopped it.”

“I’m trying to _tell _you,” says Rupert, with helpless frustration. “There was _no _good choice to be made.”

“There was one,” says Jenny.

“Sometimes there really are no good choices to make,” says Rupert. “More than standing by your decision to save Joyce, Jenny, I need you to understand _that. _There are _always _consequences, no matter what you choose. I was able to recognize that. I’m beginning to think that you weren’t.”

“Don’t fucking—don’t talk to me like that,” says Jenny. “Don’t _patronize _me. I thought you were better than that.”

“Just _listen _to me—”

“You’re not saying anything useful, so why should I?” Jenny’s screaming again, loudly enough to startle a few birds out of a nearby tree. “I don’t want ANYTHING to do with you, Rupert, not now, now EVER, and _NOT _after I had to stand behind you KNOWING that you were watching a woman DIE!”

“Jenny,” says Rupert, moving forward.

“Don’t _TOUCH _me!” And oh, god, god—

“Jenny,” says Rupert again, and he’s crying too, now, gathering her into his arms as they tumble to the floor. His arms around her are just as they always have been, but she can’t erase the feeling, the clawing realization that the man she loved was not going to come through for her, was not going to make the right call, was going to watch dispassionately as a woman died, but his arms around her—his fingers tangling in her hair—

Jenny is crying so hard that she’s almost forgetting to breathe. The words she’s trying to say are coming out garbled and incoherent—_I can’t do this, I’m sorry, I hate you, I love you—_and she feels like she’s a prisoner of her own misery. She hides her face in the crook of Rupert’s neck and she feels his fingers splay against the back of her head and _how _can he hold her after what she’s done?

“I’m sorry.” Rupert’s crying, still. “I’m so sorry. You should never have been in that position. I’m sorry.”

And Jenny wants to tell him _no, it’s my fault—_someone who stands by a Watcher’s side should be strong enough to do what Rupert tried to. It’s her kindness that makes her weak, she thinks, the parts of her that want to save the entire world, the parts of her that still believe in happy endings—

She doesn’t know how long she cries, but it’s a very long time. Longer still, if you count the time spent trying to catch her breath. What she does know is that when she raises her head, she says, voice still shaking, “This doesn’t fix anything.”

“No,” says Rupert, just as hollow as she feels. “No, it really doesn’t.”

Jenny places a hand against his cheek, and he leans into it, just as he always has. “I’m going to spend the night here,” she says. “You should go home.”

“Yes,” says Rupert, and helps her to her feet, gripping her elbows like he’s almost afraid to let go of her. And Jenny’s almost afraid of him leaving, because for all she knows, this is the last moment that they stand this close. “I love you,” he says, and the worst part is that they both know he means it just as much as he always has.

Jenny doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t know if she can.

Rupert’s gaze flits to her mouth like he wants to kiss her, but then he looks away, dropping his hands from her elbows and turning to leave. Eyes still stinging from her crying jag, Jenny watches him go.

* * *

“Jesus,” says Buffy. Her face is very pale.

“Yeah,” says Jenny.

They’re sitting on Buffy’s bed, face-to-face. The whole thing feels oddly like a sleepover, which it kind of is: Joyce is making them both hot chocolate, and had not-so-subtly insinuated that Jenny should take this time to brief Buffy on what had happened at the museum. Jenny had done her best to do so in an unbiased way, but Buffy’s looking horrified and shaken enough that Jenny’s starting to worry she might not have done a very good job of it.

“But you guys are—” Buffy makes a few complicated gestures. At Jenny’s confused expression, she elaborates. “You two _fit.”_

“Maybe not,” says Jenny heavily.

_“Yeah, _you do,” says Buffy fiercely. “Giles has to make the hard Watcher decisions, sure, but what happens if he’s the only one there? _Best_-case scenario, a whole museum full of people dies and Giles gets away—but no matter how you slice that pie, somebody’s gonna end up dead.”

“That sounds like a godawful piece of pie,” says Jenny. “What flavor? Banana murder?”

Buffy gives Jenny a Look. Maybe it’s a Summers thing instead of a mom thing, Jenny thinks. “My _point,_” she says, “is that without you there, my mom would be dead. And maybe Giles was willing to make that sacrifice, but you weren’t.”

“Partners are supposed to make each other stronger—”

“And you _do,_” says Buffy. “Because strong people who disagree with each other are gonna have to learn how to compromise.”

Something about that resonates with Jenny. But she’s tired, today, and she can’t dissect and unpack all the things she’s learned, so she nods distantly and says, “Thanks. Yeah.” Pulling herself up off the bed, she exits the bedroom, walking past Joyce and Eric’s room as she does.

And then she stops, and takes a few steps back, until she’s peering through the half-open doorway into the darkened room.

Because Joyce isn’t making hot chocolate. Joyce is in Eric’s arms, and he’s crying into her hair, and she’s murmuring sobbing reassurances in return. “It’s okay,” she’s saying, “it’s _okay, _Eric, baby, we’re both _alive, _and Buffy’s alive, okay? That’s what counts. Nothing else.”

After a long, painful moment, Jenny heads down the stairs, reaching the living room. She can still hear Joyce and Eric and Buffy all moving around upstairs; no one seems ready to go to bed just yet. After taking off her shoes, she glances towards the couch—pillows and blankets set up for her comfort—and then, to her surprise, she finds herself pulling out her phone instead, pressing the number at the top of her Favorites list.

When the phone picks up, there’s silence on the other end of the line.

“You know I love you too,” says Jenny. “Right?”

A soft, exhausted laugh. _“Is that why you called?”_

“Oh, who the fuck knows,” says Jenny. “I think I-I just need to hear your voice right now.”

_“What do you want me to talk about?”_

“We’re both alive, right?” says Jenny, but it doesn’t sound as real or as resonant as it did when Joyce had said it to Eric. It doesn’t just _fix _everything that broke between them in the span of twenty seconds, Rupert’s hand pressed protectively over the dagger to hide it. “I wanted that to make things better.”

Rupert doesn’t seem to have anything to say to that.

“Buffy thinks we’re a good match,” says Jenny. “She thinks that—” She tries to remember what Buffy had said, but she’s tired, and the words that come out don’t seem quite as perfect. “Strong people are good at compromising?”

_“…is that what she said?”_

“Probably not. I’m exhausted.”

_“Jenny, it’s—” _Another silence, this one more pained. Then, _“I want you to know, I—I didn’t get the chance to tell you what I was trying to, when we met on the porch.”_

“Oh?”

_“I wanted to say that I understand why you made the choice you did.”_

Jenny feels that like a knife to the gut. She expected a lot of things from Rupert, but _never _any kind of absolution. _“Oh,” _she says, almost a sob.

_“I-I don’t necessarily agree with it,” _says Rupert. _“Not entirely. But—we’re allowed to not agree with each other, I think, so long as we talk it out afterward—”_

“Rupert,” says Jenny. She wishes she hadn’t called him, now. “What if this happens again?”

_“I’m sorry?”_

“What if we’re in that position again?” says Jenny. “World ending, lives in jeopardy. What happens then?”

_“Jenny—”_

“Our ideological differences aren’t hypotheticals anymore,” says Jenny. “Someone could get seriously hurt because of choices that one or both of us make.”

_“Jenny,” _says Rupert. _“It was always like that.”_

“Well, I—” Jenny lets out a frustrated breath; it turns into a sob halfway. “I didn’t _know _it was like that!” she says. “And I feel like an _idiot _for not making the connection!”

_“There are no good choices,” _says Rupert again. _“There is no perfect choice. There are only the choices we make with the information we have. You stuck with your instincts, Jenny, and they turned out to be good ones—”_

“I STARTED A FUCKING APOCALYPSE,” says Jenny very loudly. The movement upstairs quiets. She winces.

_“The ball was rolling for a long time now,” _says Rupert.

“Stop—_stop,_” Jenny sobs out. “Stop it, Rupert, stop _fucking _forgiving me for this—”

_“Is that what this is?” _Rupert sounds horrified. _“That you can’t forgive yourself for your part in this?”_

“No,” says Jenny, “no, _no, _this is about _you, _this is about me being mad at you—” But she hears the urgency in her voice, the way her words tumble out, and it sounds less and less convincing the more she tries to convince him of it. “I’m _fine,_” she sobs, “I am _fine _with my choices, I’m _fine _with them I’m fine I’m fine I’M FINE—”

_WEAK, _Drusilla says again in the back of her head.

Jenny throws the phone across the room—as though that’ll stop Rupert from being on the other end of the line—and half-collapses onto the couch, burying her face in the pillow. It takes her a very long time to fall asleep.

* * *

She wakes up to find Rupert lying on the floor next to the couch. He’s stolen one of her pillows from the large pile Joyce had set up for her, though he hadn’t bothered to take the extra blanket. His eyes are closed, and he’s still wearing the rumpled, ruined suit that he’d worn to the gala a lifetime ago. And then Jenny notices: tucked into his hand is that lost little flower from her dress, the one she’d believed a casualty of war. He saved it.

She watches him sleep. He looks awful, and part of it is probably from sleeping on the floor, but the other part is definitely from surviving a fucking apocalypse. And he _did _survive, despite it all—him, and her, and their stupid coordinated formal wear, no matter how ragged and terrible they look in the aftermath.

Quietly, still half-tangled in the blankets, Jenny slides off the couch and into Rupert’s arms, unfurling some of the blankets to drape them over him. He makes a soft noise and pulls her closer in his sleep. She settles her cheek against his chest, listening to his heartbeat.


End file.
